Soldiers of Fortune
Those of us who are against our government’s actions in Iraq are frequently criticized for not supporting our troops (a feeble conclusion, at best). What is frequently glossed over in these discussions, however, is the number of opportunistic defense contractors involved in the mix and the crimes they commit. AlterNet’s got the details in “The 10 Most Brazen War Profiteers.”
September 6th, 2006 at 10:53 am
No rant today my friend. This is just sad and par for the course. Can\’t we tax them more? Please?
p
September 6th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
Let us hope that those who can be proven to be criminals will be held accountable, and it appears that there are pending court cases that will help decide the guilt if any.
Let us also not forget that it was partially the bickering that Haliburton was receiving no contest bids that brought in many of these companies in their place. Some of these allegations kind of makes you wish for the Haliburton only days, huh?
Haliburton originally received these no contest bids because at the time they where the only company big enough and with enough resources to get the job done, and they have shown to be able to do it right.
September 6th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Ron,
I can\’t take that last comment seriously at all. Did you not pay attention to all the graft and fraud that went thru Haliburton?
p
September 6th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
Will we ever see any positive news in these threads. Doom and gloom… good God! …kill me now please. Apparently all is bad in this world and it is soon to end in a fireball.
We’ve got to be able to find something good to focus on. The current mental trend here is a cycle of negativity. I’m not saying sugar coat the world. I’m just saying that a balanced focus on some good is a healthy thing from time to time.
Challenge. Find something that we can agree upon as good in the world today regardless of political bent and bias. Good luck.
September 6th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
You bring up a great point, Nate. Actually, to be honest, there is a certain set of stories that I seem to post more about. I guess this is because of the level of concern I have about things these days. What’s interesting though, is outside of this blog, the percentage of time that I think about this stuff is very small. So, I guess this is my outlet, in a way.
The rest of the time I’m either spending time with my beautiful wife and son or doing work that I love or spending time with good friends. So, for me, life is good, anti-war blog posts notwithstanding.
September 6th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Payshun, You\’re right, I wasn\’t entirely serious. (hence the smiley) But there is the point that at least we would have only one organization to keep track of instead of so many that the bureaucracy to manage them is basically an impossible task.
Nate, you have a great point. I feel like there are some people (I\’m not meaning to single out just Ray here) who are focusing so much on the negativity in this world that I get the feeling like they just want to throw the baby (America) out with the bath water so to speak. Seeming to ignore all that is right with America. I am happy to note what you said Ray, that you don\’t really focus every moment of your day on all this negativity.
One more point, I noticed that most of the discussion on the article page seems to center around Bush Derangement Syndrome sufferers. You know the type… I felt like every other post called the President something like Chimpy McBushitlerburton (or whatever the latest nickname is now). I find it difficult to take such rhetoric seriously myself, and I don\’t know if that site regularly attracts this type of reader or not but it doesn\’t lend much credibility in my eyes to its stories.
I do find it refreshing that we seem to be basically absent of BDS rhetoric here on Ray\’s blog and have so far enjoyed the intelligent discussions I\’ve had here.
September 6th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
All I can say is, Soldier of Fortune was my favorite magazine when I was in Middle School. Pretty scary.
Bear
September 6th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
That mag did rock.
September 7th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Ron said: “I feel like there are some people (I\’m not meaning to single out just Ray here) who are focusing so much on the negativity in this world that I get the feeling like they just want to throw the baby (America) out with the bath water so to speak. Seeming to ignore all that is right with America.”
Amen, Ron.
One of the great things about America in its present form is that we can only look injustice in the face for 10 seconds without either writing a song about it, memorializing it in a movie, doing a 10 minute expose on 60 Minutes, or going to WalMart to buy a “support our troops” sticker or a flag to fly out our car window emblazoned with the logo of our favorite sports team. It’s great in America that we don’t let things get to us too much. It’s great that we find the message of evangelical Christianity so meaningful to our President and to members of his cabinet and that we stand for something in this country–unlike all of those secularized European and Asian countries that curse God and practice diplomacy and don’t spend the largest segment of their federal budgets on defense.
Or so I’ve been told.
If we have nothing else to be proud of in this country, its that there are people who find the dark side to every purportedly silver-lined cloud; that we can point out inconsistancies in our governance which is, of course, supposed to be by us and for us; that we can have our tax money spent on killing or imprisoning unidentified enemy combatants, but they can’t make us shut up about finding those things repugnant; that when someone in power tries to sell us their version of the truth that we can expose the lies; that when someone tells us to “trust and obey, for there’s no other way” that we can take our votes and our dollars elsewhere.
Holding the contrary opinion, something that Ray does very well, is the baby in that ocean of stinky bathwater. Keep it up, man.
September 8th, 2006 at 6:35 am
I appear to have been misunderstood once again. Unfortunately it seems to happen more frequently lately than I had hoped.
My point is not that pointing out things that are bad or playing devils advocate is wrong in and of itself. I happen to participate in those activities regularly myself. It’s more about, if that’s all you focus on, what is wrong with America and don’t offer solutions or counter arguments to how things can be done better, its usefulness becomes extremely diminished. My point is that whine, bitch, moan (WBM) sessions really only serve to wallow in misery. When you make it public, it’s like the old saying, misery loves company. At some point, the only conclusion that can be made by all this is ‘there is no solution, lets call the whole thing off’.
e, Please don’t use Europe of all places to argue any kind of utopia exists compared to America. At least we don’t have the same troubles with unemployment, widespread riots, home grown terrorism, and potentially collapsing economies due to socialist economic policies as many European countries seem to be currently suffering from. Now, I do acknowledge that Europe isn’t a bad place entirely, but lets be realistic here and hold to the same standards. Remember, when it comes to fighting terrorism, say what you want about resources spent on the military, but it appears that only America currently has the ability (and possibly will) to stand in the face of such tyranny on a global scale.
e, when you speak about freedom of speech as an example of what makes America great, while I agree that is true, I am concerned by recent events that shows me that the only groups who truly have freedom of speech in this country are those who are critical of our government, Republicans in general and those who wish to offend Christians and Jews.
I am speaking about how the former Clinton administration is pressuring ABC to change a film about 9-11 that is critical of decisions made by members of that administration. This is awful to our freedom of speech, especially in the light of Michael Moore’s film that has since been almost entirely debunked and shown to be dishonest but allowed to shown in its entirety, uncensored by its opponents. What business do the Democrats in congress have threatening a broadcasting company with revoking their broadcasting license if they don’t censor their movies?! As to why Clinton has got his panties all in a wad, I have to think “Thou dost protest too much”.
This isn’t the only assault on our freedom of speech. After all how many news agencies decided not to publish or at least censor pictures of the Mohammed cartoons from Denmark simply because they where afraid of retribution from angry Islamic terrorists!? I have actually seen an american publication that on the very same page as an explanation that they won’t publish Mohammed cartoons because of offending Muslims, there was a cartoon offensive to Christians and an article condemning Jews for most of the troubles in the middle east.
September 8th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Thanks, Erik.
Ron - I agree in principle with the point you raise. I don’t like it when people complain but don’t offer solutions. This is something I try not to do, but I’m sure I could always do a better job.
However, I have a feeling that the solutions I offer won’t be anymore palatable to the purveyors of “discourse” coming from the Right. Here are a few examples:
1. Torture: um, how about not torturing people? Is this a valid suggestion?
2. Domestic spying - I don’t know that I need any suggestion more powerful than the Constitution on this one. Sadly, it’s not strong enough these days.
3. Lying about Iraq’s involvement in 9/11 to start a war: again, my suggestion would be to not start wars. Not lying about it would be a good thing too.
4. Hiring mercenaries and putting them in positions with great potential for abuse of the people we’re “helping”: Again, my vote would be a “no” on this one.
So clearly there is a pattern here. I oppose much of what is going on. It doesn’t mean I don’t have ideas. In part, it means that we’re so far off our path here that we have a lot of work to do just to regain the ground we’ve lost.
I also find this criticism to be a little unfounded because the suggestions that this administration offer for solving problems usually involves bombing somebody. While that is indeed “action,” it is an action that shows a fantastic lack of sophistication and will / has / is create(ing) more problems than it solves. I’m a firm believer in solving the root cause of conflict, which overwhelmingly involves either 1) inequality or 2) a power imbalance. These can almost always been solved by non-violent means.
The military-industrial complex (who contributes heavily to Republican campaigns), of course, disagrees. No conflict of interest there, I’m sure.
I won’t comment on the other issues Ron brings up. We could get into a very long discussion about each one of those, and that would take us way off-topic. It will suffice for me to say that I don’t for a minute believe that we have the truth about 9-11. Do you?
September 10th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Ray, you bring up some valid ideas. I may not agree with the specifics of each one, but I do agree that anything we are doing, we could also not be doing. Any thing we are capable of doing (or not doing) is a possible action and I believe it is important to discuss them and their possible merits. I also don\’t believe that only voting \”No\” is always a good option. If all we did was just the opposite of what George Bush is doing, we would have some pretty messed up things going on. Perhaps there are third options we could be discussing as well?
I agree with your point that when you get to the point of needing to bomb someone there has been a failure in foreign policy somewhere. But if we are to blame someone, lets not simply give it all to George Bush. Remember he inherited the intelligence, security, foreign policies and many other shortcomings from previous administrations. If we are to blame Bush, we need to also blame all the presidents all the way back through Carter for the issues in the middle east, perhaps even further back to Harry Truman and FDR. However at this point would be like crying over spilt milk. Hindsight is 20-20 and the only useful thing to do with it is to learn from it. I always prefer to stop trying to find fault and rather find it more useful to find solutions.
As for getting off topic, you ought know me by now Ray.
I always enjoy discussing many deep topics and I wouldn\’t easily turn down an opportunity to do so. I apologize for any thread jacking on my part, I guess it comes too easily for me as it is often difficult to discuss topics in depth without discussing other related issues as well.
In response to your question about the truth about 9-11, I\’m not sure exactly what you are getting at. I believe that we know many things about 9-11 but like any thing in war, the truth is often the first casualty.
If, however you are referring to groups that push the inside job theory such as the \”loose change\” video, I would seriously hope you don\’t subscribe to such ideas.
September 11th, 2006 at 9:22 am
Believe me, I don’t assign all of the blame on Bush. Yes, he is just as guilty as his predecessors responsible for crimes commited against humanity, but there are plenty of others just like him. The millions left dead as a direct result of our (and the colonizing West’s) involvement / meddling / expansion over the last 200 years are better witnesses to this than anything I could say.
This fact excuses none of the current behavior, however.
“I believe that we know many things about 9-11 but like any thing in war, the truth is often the first casualty.”
That is a mightily cavalier response. I don’t have anything to say in return. Are you satisfied with this? It’s unacceptable to me.
“If, however you are referring to groups that push the inside job theory such as the \”loose change\” video, I would seriously hope you don\’t subscribe to such ideas.”
I’ve had questions about 9-11 long before films like “Loose Change” came out. There is so much about the official story that doesn’t add up. I don’t know what to conclude but I do know that we’re being lied to.
Again, is this acceptable to you?
September 11th, 2006 at 11:54 am
How about I get more specific then. I believe that most of what the 9/11 commission reported to be accurate. I don\’t believe it to be 100 percent accurate in all of its statements and also there are errors of omission. That doesn\’t mean that it is completely invalidated as a useful tool to learn from mistakes made.
Like I\’ve said before, almost everyone was in denial about the seriousness of Islamic Terrorism before 9-11, but that afterwards, it woke many people up. While there are portions of the population that wish to continue to ignore the threats, and lets face it, no one wants to face the ugly reality that there are people that want us dead, but I am very glad that there are those striving to make us safer. I firmly believe we are safer today in our own country, and I do not believe it was merely an accident that we haven\’t had a major terrorist attack within our borders since 9-11.
If you believe that the bipartisan 9-11 commission is intentionally lying to you in any hugely significant way, I worry about you Ray. I simply cannot conclude from any of the evidence (and I consider myself reasonably well read in this area) that this is an inside job by the Bush administration. I can\’t conclude that any more than the failures in the Clinton administration that led to a weakening of our intelligence, law enforcement and foreign policy in regards to Terrorism, was somehow an intentional attempt to cause several embassy bombings, the first World Trade Center attack, the U.S.S. Cole bombing, and 9-11 (have I missed anything?).
In order to begin to even believe that the Bush administration even has an ounce of the power it would take to silence every government and private sector employee who where witnesses to 9-11, law enforcement, and both major political parties, not to mention the entire mainstream media most of whom are not friendly to Bush, you would be heading into what I consider kook conspiracy territory. I know you to be quite intelligent Ray and I know that must not be exactly what you are saying, am I correct?
September 11th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
I never said it was an inside job by the Bush administration.
Like I said, I have come to no conclusions, but I know that I’m not alone among intelligent people who doubt that we’re getting the full story.
To suggest that you’re only intelligent if you accept this administration tells us is not really exercising critical thinking.
As for bi-partisan commisions - it was a bi-partisan government that signed the Patriot Act, so so much for any integrity there.
September 12th, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Clearly saying “I don’t know what to conclude but I do know we’re being lied to” is not the same as “this is an inside job by the Bush administration.” There are fundamental conflations going on here that can’t be simply as a result of misunderstanding. If I were to say “I’m not sure who to believe about X” no one could/should accurately presume me to mean “Everyone who talks about X is lying” or “X is really Y”–unless one was trying to add to the claim “because (1) I think the person who said X is a liberal and (2) because I think liberals think Y and (3) because I really think that when a liberal says X they mean Y, then (4) the person who said X really meant Y.”
In other words, and with due respect to your person and beliefs, Ron, I would guess that you’re adding to Ray’s actual words content that he doesn’t intend so that you can argue against this more robust–perhaps in your mind ‘liberal’–position.
This is troubling to me, if for no other reason than the selfish one: I don’t want to be painted a ‘liberal’ and yet I don’t subscribe to the ‘conservative’ decisions made by our current governemental administrations–executive, legislative, and judicial branches, inclusive. More than this: I feel that I can no longer be ‘conservative’ if the ‘conservativism’ can only be defined the way that those ‘conservatives’ in power want to define it.
But I don’t want to be a ‘liberal’ either, since there are a substantial proportion of ‘liberal’ values that I do not, for one, adhere to. However, it seems from many of your comments, Ron, that there are only two labels that people can carry: ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’. And those that are against the policies of our current government, apparently, can only be against the core values of ‘conservativism’ and are therefore properly labeled “liberals.”
You may object that my characterizations of your positions are not fair (since you didn’t explicitly proffer these labels) and, if that is the case, then I offer an apology in advance. But from reading these, and other, comments on Ray’s blog, I’m not sure how else to characterize what’s going on with all these ‘misunderstandings.’
September 13th, 2006 at 11:48 am
e, I do feel as if you are attempting to label me in just the same ways you claim I am labeling Ray. Do you really know me the way you might think?
Ray has given me little information on which to go on, and so I do not pretend to know what Ray is saying exactly by his statement “I don’t know what to conclude but I do know we’re being lied to”. What I can speak to are what I hear _most_ people who claim we are being lied to say, and I was speaking my opinion of them. Even though what Ray said (before he clarified his statement some more) might be easily construed to mean he believes in inside job conspiracy theories, I did not simply make that assumption, which is why I asked him if I was correct in believing he was trying to say something else.
Let me say again, Ray has not made it clear to me exactly what he is saying, but I am not going to put words in his mouth. Only he can say what he believes to be true. My opinion was speaking about other people since I can’t definitively say what Ray believes in this matter.
I also want to make it clear, I have not used the labels ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ to my knowledge. I’m not a huge fan of such terms for lots of reasons, but they are also easily misunderstood simply because there are as many definitions of what they mean as there are people who use them. In fact, the original definitions are quite reversed to the more common more modern American equivalents. In my opinion, there are few people who fully embody one label or another completely by any definition and that holds true for Bush as it does for anyone, making such distinctions somewhat useless.
e, you are correct that many of these misunderstandings do often stem from our preconceived notions, and I have apologized for my part for those that I feel have been my fault. I am not alone in the guilt for them however. I feel that I too have been misunderstood many times for just the very reasons you cite. No biggie, as long as we all understand why it is happening.
September 13th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
One more thing, and I’m sorry for the double post. I want to also address one of Ray’s comments.
Ray said:
“To suggest that you’re only intelligent if you accept this administration tells us is not really exercising critical thinking.”
Ray, I hope you would understand that someone like myself who has looked at all the evidence I could find, examined and weighed them, not from one source but many sources, many from known credible scientists and have just happened to come to a similar conclusion to what the Bush administration has been saying, fits the definition of critical thinking.
Even though you may not agree with President Bush, and practice critical thinking for yourself, it does not mean I’ll let you simply whitewash all people who agree with Bush as being mind numbed robots.
Having said that, I realize you have yet to come to any conclusions, but if you have any evidence that I have yet to hear, I am open to examine them for myself. Even though I have yet to see any convincing evidence, I think that you know me to be an open minded individual that will listen to what you have to say. It doesn’t mean I have to believe it, but I will definitely consider it.